Dred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional EvilDred Scott and the Problem of Constitutional Evil , first published in 2006, concerns what is entailed by pledging allegiance to a constitutional text and tradition saturated with concessions to evil. The Constitution of the United States was originally understood as an effort to mediate controversies between persons who disputed fundamental values, and did not offer a vision of the good society. In order to form a 'more perfect union' with slaveholders, late-eighteenth-century citizens fashioned a constitution that plainly compelled some injustices and was silent or ambiguous on other questions of fundamental right. This constitutional relationship could survive only as long as a bisectional consensus was required to resolve all constitutional questions not settled in 1787. Dred Scott challenges persons committed to human freedom to determine whether antislavery northerners should have provided more accommodations for slavery than were constitutionally strictly necessary or risked the enormous destruction of life and property that preceded Lincoln's new birth of freedom. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The Problem of Constitutional Evil | 8 |
Slavery as a Constitutional Evil | 12 |
THE LESSONS OF DRED SCOTT | 15 |
The Dred Scott Decision | 18 |
Critiques of Dred Scott | 20 |
The Institutional Critique | 23 |
The Historical Critique | 24 |
18201860 | 126 |
The Constitution and the Civil War | 167 |
Law and Politics | 168 |
COMPROMISING WITH EVIL | 173 |
Mojoritarianism and Constitutional Evil | 179 |
Problems with Democratic Majoritarianism | 186 |
Contract Consent and Constitutional Evil | 198 |
Lincoln on Constitutional Contracts and Constitutional Evil | 200 |
The Aspirational Critique | 26 |
Critiquing the Critiques | 28 |
The Institutional Critique | 30 |
The Historical Critique | 46 |
The Aspirational Critique | 76 |
Injustice and Constitutional Law | 83 |
From Constitutional Law to Constitutional Politics | 85 |
THE CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS OF SLAVERY | 91 |
The Slavery Comprises Revisited | 93 |
The Original Constitutional Politics of Slavery | 96 |
Accommodating Evil in 1787 | 106 |
Cracks in the Constitutional Consensus | 109 |
Toward the Future | 114 |
The Compromises and Constitutional Development | 115 |
The Contractual Conception of Constitutional Evil | 205 |
The Constitution as a Contract | 207 |
Cracks in the Constitutional Contract | 210 |
Frustration of Constitution | 217 |
Constitutional Relationships and Constitutional Evil | 219 |
The Constitution as a Relational Contract | 220 |
The Constitutional Case for Abandoning the Constitution of 1787 | 226 |
Voting for John Bell | 237 |
Lincoln versus Bell | 241 |
The Constitution of Todays Lincoln Voters | 243 |
The Constitution of Todays Bell Voters | 247 |
Constitutional Justice or Constitutional Peace | 252 |
255 | |
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Common terms and phrases
16th Cong 1st Sess 28th Cong 2nd Sess 31st Cong Abraham Lincoln American American Law Institute Annals of Congress antebellum asserted ban slavery bisectionalism Carolina citizens citizenship claim clause coalition Collected Compromise of 1850 Congressional Globe consensus consensus democracy consent consti constitutional commitment constitutional controversies constitutional evil constitutional order constitutional relationships constitutionally contract Cooper Curtis debates decision declared Democracy dissenting Documentary History Dred Scott Eisgruber elected electoral emancipation Farrand Federalist Papers Fehrenbacher framers free blacks free-state Freehling human bondage institutions interpreted Jacksonian James Madison Jefferson John judicial justice Law Review Liberty and Slavery Lincoln maintained majoritarian McLean Missouri Compromise national government North original constitutional persons of color political problem of constitutional proslavery ratification Republican sectional Senate slave-state slavery South South Carolina Southern Stephen Douglas stitutional Supreme Court Taney Court Taney's territories theory tion tional tutional Union United University Press veto Virginia vote Whigs York
References to this book
Profiles in Folly: History's Worst Decisions and why They Went Wrong Alan Axelrod Limited preview - 2008 |